The Berry Best Berries
by WogglebugLoveProductions
Summary: When the Purple Pieman and Sour Grapes join forces with No-Heart to turn the world bitter the Care Bears must team with Strawberry Shortcake and her friends to find the magic tasteberries to restore the world's sweetness.


It was a beautiful new morning in CareALot. The Care Bears were just waking up and greeting the new day. Funshine Bear was helping the sun to shine through the clouds around them, while Cheer Bear was at the Caring Clock Tower and ringing the wake up bell. Friend Bear was kindly helping Bedtime Bear to keep his balance as he stumbled sleepily from his night watch post and Wish Bear took over. Meanwhile, Tenderheart and Grumpy Bear were at the Hall of Hearts and were making the last of the preparations for the very special ceremony that was to be held today, which was for Hugs and Tugs Care Bear initiation as the two cubs had now just come to the age at which they could become regular Care Bears.

And so it was at this time in their cloud cottage that Grams Bear was explaining once again the reasons for this special ceremony to the two young bears.

"So you see, you two will from now on be able to participate regularly in any caring mission that you are qualified for," she said.

"And will we also be able to use our tummy symbols the same way the grown-up bears do?" asked Tugs eagerly.

"Absolutely," Grams said with a smile.

"Oh, goody goody gosh!" exclaimed Hugs delightedly "This is our dream come true!"

"And you've earned it you know," Grams said. "After all the times you helped to resolve problems the Care Bears couldn't, and sometimes without even meaning to, and the times you also saved CareALot from No-Heart's clutches."

Hugs and Tugs now looked a bit apprehensive at the mention of the Caring Family's worst enemy. "Grams, No-Heart won't try to ruin our ceremony for us, will he?" asked Hugs worriedly.

"Now, don't you fret about him," Grams said soothingly. "I'm sure that even if he was to try to do anything bad on a day like this, we would always be able to stop him before he could."

The young bears now looked reassured and then went on again about all of the great things they would do once they had become regular Care Bears.

It was however at this very moment that the malevolent sorcerer No-Heart himself was standing over his magic cauldron and spying on the Care Bears happiness within it. And seeing Hugs and Tugs happiness for their special day made him extremely wrathful and enraged at realizing how much and how often he had failed to rid the world of the Caring Family, and how that now with yet another two Care Bears officially in the league against him it would be harder than ever before to destroy them and thus be able to succeed at riding the whole world of all thoughts of love, kindness, and caring.

He was so furious that his eyes glowed redder than fire and he lifted his arms up and made the storm clouds that surrounded the outside of his castle explode with a thunderous burst and lightning blazed around everything for a long moment and the castle and the ground beneath it shook very violently so that it was a wonder it did not collapse upon itself right then.

"What am I going to do now to rid the world of all these feelings of love and happiness and hope that the Care Bears encourage every single day!" he roared, causing yet another rumble of thunder that took the whole castle by storm again.

No-Heart's rage of course did not go unnoticed by his ever loyal servant Beastly, who at this moment rushed into the room, nearly tripping over his own clumsy feet in his hurry. Then he ran panting heavily up to his master and said,

"Calm down, my lord! You're going to blow yourself up! We can still get rid of those stupid Care Bears and their cousins... if we just think of a new a plan that will work out this time."

No-Heart glowered at Beastly with such an intense look of hatred and despise that Beastly's knees trembled and he looked as if he might be sick.

"Well, we can... you know?" Beastly said in a frightened squeak.

"How can we!" No-Heart demanded of him with so much force in his words that Beastly lost his balance and landed on his backside hard on the floor.

"Well..." Beastly stammered. "We can... we can flood their homes and send them away from them!"

"We already tried to, and it failed!" No-Heart reminded him exasperatedly.

"Oh... right," Beastly tried to think again and then said, "Well, we can overload their caring meter so that they won't be able to save the world in time!"

"We tried that already also, and failed!" No-Heart reminded him again.

"Oh yeah!" Beastly shuddered and then thought more and said, "Well, why don't you try kidnapping those cubs to get the rest to come to you and then destroy their home!"

"I already tried and I failed at it!" No-Heart reminded him impatiently. "And... I always failed all because of you! You and your stupid bumbling ways! Why did I hire you to begin with? Why don't I just put you out of your misery right this moment? In fact, I think I will!"

No-Heart then raised his arms high above his head and pointed his long bony green fingers at Beastly and bits of lightning sparks began to generate out of them. Beastly knew exactly what his fate was going to be in the next moment if he didn't somehow manage to distract his master from it. He was forced into lightning quick thought and then abruptly said the very first thing which entered his small mind without even thinking on it.

"Why don't you find another place ruled by love and caring to destroy to weaken the Care Bears first?"

Then suddenly No-Heart lowered his arms and the sparks in his fingers extinguished and his eyes glowed another less violent shade of red as he looked at Beastly in shock and a bit of something like delight also.

"Why... I never thought of such a thing before!" he said smoothly. "And it just may work too. You may not be as useless as you used to be after all, Beastly."

Beastly then wiped his brow heaving a deep sigh of relief as No-Heart bent over his magic cauldron again and whispered a command into the swirling green liquid within it, "Show me the next to CareAlot most caring place on Earth."

Then at once the green liquid glowed white in the middle for a second and then all at once the image appeared in the cauldron of a most colorfully beautiful land filled to the brim with ripe and luscious looking fruits and berries of a larger than average size. In many places there were houses shaped like pies and cakes or giant fruits.

No-Heart scowled in disgust at such gorgeous beauty in a land so seemingly devoid of any troubles at all. And yet at the same time he was pleased to have found what he was looking for, a new place to cause bad things to reek havoc on the innocent inhabitants of it.

"And now show me the resident of this land with the most caring heart in it," he commanded.

And then the liquid in the cauldron shimmered again and then the image in it changed to the inside of one of the cottages. The walls of which were covered with pink wallpaper dotted with red strawberries, and all the furniture was either red, pink, or white. In a chair shaped very much like a large strawberry sat a small girl with strawberry colored hair wearing a large strawberry shaped bonnet and a red and white spotted dress with a large white apron with strawberries in the center. She was holding a small white cat in her lap and smiling at it a smile so sweet that it brought to No-Heart a kind of hatred even he never knew he possessed within him.

"Now, Custard," the little strawberry girl said to her cat, "I understand how you don't much like this time of the year. It is after all, just before the winter comes, and harvesting our berries is often berry hard work for us all. But it's still berry fun to do, if we just make it berry fun in each our own way, and after all when Winter comes we will all have our tummies berry full of our own fruits and berries we grew ourselves during the year and thus be able to enjoy all the pleasures that the wintertime has to offer us."

The little white cat in her lap seemed to smile then and rub its head against her neck.

"That's right, Custard," she said just as though she could understand the cat, "and now let's go get ready to meet with all our friends and divide into teams for the berry big berry harvest."

No-Heart scowled and narrowed his eyes in abject irritation as he put his hands up to the sides of his head and shook it from side to side. "How can she keep repeating the word berry instead of the word very so much!" he thundered. "And she is so full of sweetness and goodness that she is actually even more nauseating to me than the those two Care Bears cubs are!"

"Oh, I do so agree, Master No-Heart, sir," said Beastly hastily. "Oh, we must certainly destroy the berry land and get rid of the berry girl and all her berry friends and their berries!"

Then all of a sudden No-Heart shot two electric sparks in Beastly's direction which knocked him off his feet and singed his fur and made him yelp loudly.

"And now you are berry talking to me!" No-Heart thundered. "I can see her demeanor is contagious. And I see that in order to get rid of her and her friends and their land I must first be rid of all of the sweetness of all of them... but how?"

Beastly stumbled to his feet again and rubbed his backside and stammered, "Well... uh... maybe you could team up with someone else who also hates those berry brats?"

"Hmm... You might actually have yet another idea worth my considering, Beastly," No-Heart said thoughtfully. Then he turned back to his magic cauldron again and commanded, "Show me the one who hates this Strawberry Shortcake girl as much as I do."

And then the green liquid shifted and the image altered to a dark atmosphere in the center of which there was a tall mountain made of thorns, at the top of which was a pile of pots and pans that were the base of a house, and inside of it there was a very tall and skinny man with a very large head with thick puffy white hair at the sides and a long curled mustache. He was wearing a tall baker's hat and long apron and looking into a large shiny pie tin with a scowl that was almost equal to No-Heart's.

"Hmmph!" he grunted to himself. "And now those wretched berry kids are preparing for their annual berry harvest once again, and look at us! We're still left without any things to fill our pies with! And without things to fill our pies with we won't be able to make the best pies in the world and get rich and famous!"

Then from behind the pieman there came a very shrill high-pitched soprano voice that said, "Well, my dear Purpy, why don't we just steal their berries from them before they can harvest them?"

"But I've already tried to so much!" the pieman wailed. "And failed each time because those berry kids just have too many allies on their side!"

"Well, why can't we just force them into giving us their berries?" asked the tall and slender woman with purple hair who stepped up beside him.

"I already tried that also!" the pieman wailed. "And it failed also. Something always goes wrong with my plans. I'm beginning to think I should just give up and go move somewhere else to get berries for my pies."

The slim purple dressed woman wrapped her long arms around the pieman's middle and crooned, "Now, Purpy you mustn't give up so easily. Remember as long as we are a team we can conquer Strawberryland one of these days."

Just then the snake that was draped around her shoulders stuck its head into the pieman's face and flicked its tongue at him hissing.

"Egad!" the Pieman shouted as he pushed the snake away. "I wish you wouldn't always have him so close by!" Then he sighed and said, "Well, I guess the two of us just isn't enough. We need another partner for our schemes. Someone who is so much more powerful, so much more hateful and devious than the two of us are put together!"

No-Heart rubbed his hands together as he chuckled lightly at his pleasure of finding just who he was looking for and hearing them say exactly what he wanted to hear from them. "And you will now have him at your side!" he murmured.

Then No-Heart vanished from his castle throne room in a puff of thick green smoke and then reappeared instantly in the Pieman's tower. As soon as they saw him they both yelped in surprise and horror, with the woman letting out an ear-piercing shriek that caused both the pieman and No-Heart to put their hands over their ears and wince.

Then No-Heart said, "You madam, remind me so much of my niece Shrieky."

"Wh-who... who... are... you?" the Pieman asked as he quivered all over and pointed a shaky finger at No-Heart.

"I am none other than the answer to your wishes which I had heard just now and would be most honored to help you make come true," No-Heart replied stealthily.

"You mean... you want to help us to get the fruits and berries from the berry kids for our pies!" the Pieman asked delightedly.

"Not only that," said No-Heart with his red eyes narrowing smugly, "but I will also help you to rid this land of all of its sweetness and thus be rid of those berry brats who live here."

The pieman's eyes lit up ecstatically at this. "How wonderful! Then I can rule Strawberryland and change it to Pieman's Land!"

No-Heart now frowned from behind his cowl and narrowed his eyes now in displeasure. "Well, actually," he said, "I will be the one to take over Strawberryland and the world."

"But what about me?" asked the Pieman weakly. "Don't I get anything in it?"

"Well," No-Heart thought for a moment and replied, "Of course, you may have all the fruits and berries you want for your pies... as long as you will work for me, both of you."

"Why, we would be most honored to work for such an esteemed gentleman as you, sir," said the purple woman silkily, "Now, wouldn't we, Purpy?"

"Oh... uh...um... uh... Of course! Absolutely! As we are after all, the Peculiar Purple Partners of Porcupine Peak! Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta! Ta-ta-ta-ta! Ta!"

"I am Sour Grapes, and this is the Purple Pieman," Sour Grapes introduced. "And we are delighted to have you in our league."

"You mean in my league, of course," said No-Heart. He then held out one of his long green bony hands which the Purple Pieman and Sour Grapes, after flinching away from momentarily, gave a very solid shake to, and afterward looked as if they had just been doused by very cold and dirty water.

"And now," No-Heart continued, "First of all, we must devise our first course of action to rid the world of all sweetness."

"Well," said Sour Grapes, "those berry kids seem to get all their sweetness from the berries that they grow and their berries get their sweetness from them."

"So if we could just either get rid of the sweetness that is in the berries, or the kids, we could easily take over them, couldn't we?" asked the Pieman.

"Indeed," said No-Heart. "And as everyone knows, with every barrel of goodness there comes at least one thing of bad. And there are seeds that can grow very bitter berries. Berries so bitter they leave the bitterest taste in the mouths of anyone and make them bitter from the inside out. So that they forget all the sweetness that life has in it."

"And if the berry kids were to grow and then eat bitter, bitter berries they would become bitter themselves, and then so would Strawberryland, and eventually the whole world would!" the Pieman said vigorously.

"Exactly my point," said No-Heart. "And I know just the sort of seeds with which to plant our bitter berries for our victims here."

"And what better time than this of all times to plant them!" added the Pieman jubilantly. "If we could just get them to grow in time for it that is."

"Ah, and that is of no problem for me at all," No-Heart assured him."


End file.
